so same as always, eh? or different this time around?
On the other hand, an advocate for greatly increased corruption might claim that corruption can't be measured at all. Or, hypothetically, they might strictly use un-anchored non-metrics like "the other guy does it too", "any is too much", "omg look over there!", etc.
Trump on the other hand is completely open about this. He even brags about making money from deals, something that was previously considered a huge conflict of interest. He appoints people based on loyalty alone, not knowledge or experience. He bullies countries into compliance with mafia tactics ("appease me or else..." tariffs or even war like venezuela and greenland). It's a huge moral shift where that is no longer unthinkable. The US used to have values. It was a country that was at least trying to be the good guy.
Also, the constitution used to be holy. Now Trump is flaunting the 1st amendment on a daily basis (limiting LGBTIQ+ speech, establishing America as a "christian country" which is explicitly forbidden). I think all these developments are very concerning. I don't live in America but considering it is still a big world power it does worry me.
The US used to have values. It was a country that was at least trying to be the good guy.
This really is all wrong. One might think this based on pitches from different times but all Empires are evil by their definition and America has always been that, always
Again, the problem with this train of logic is you inevitable condemn everyone and everything as evil, at which point the word completely loses its meaning. Evil is only useful as a term if there are actually things that are not evil.
America has certainly done immoral, unethical and frankly evil things. It's also done moral, beautiful and even heroic things. It's a big complicated entity made up of literally millions of people and trying to summarize it as "good or evil" is pointless.
The reason this nuance matters is that we want, need to encourage doing good and the first step to doing that is to actually be able to distinguish between good and evil.
give me a list of these “beautiful and heroic things” - very interested to read them
> We estimate that over the past two decades, USAID-funded programmes have helped prevent more than 91 million deaths globally, including 30 million deaths among children.
How about that? Or are you going to come up with some excuse that somewhere, somehow, an american also benefitted from saving all these lives and therefor it doesn't count?
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
The core reason for creating USAID in 1961, under President John F. Kennedy, was to consolidate and revamp U.S. foreign aid into a single, more strategic agency to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War, promote democracy and free-market principles, and fulfill America's moral and economic role as a global leader. It aimed to separate economic aid from military assistance and make it more effective in fostering development, spreading U.S. values, and creating stable partners, distinct from the bureaucracy of the State Department.
That doesn't make usaid saving 90 million lives less great.
Also, remember how america is not a single person? It is in fact millions of people? You want to tell me with a straight face that every single employee of usaid is working entirely out of some kind of dispassionate desire to increase american foreign influence?
I don't get why it is so difficult to understand that countries (and people) and do both good and bad things over their existences and if we actually want a better future we should encourage the good things being done which means we need to actually be able to recongize good vs bad.
America actually does quite a bit for hungry children, both within and without her borders. Is it enough? Perhaps not, but that doesn't somehow make what they do bad.
However, the greatest enablement was the overblown cynicism large swaths of the american elites had towards the national proclaimed values. When you think everything is cynical even when it is not then the next step is to have governments that are completely cynical.
I'm not quite sure how to explain this very obvious point: biden and his government was not corrupt in any meaningful sense and trump and his government is extremely corrupt and pretending that they're the same is both factually wrong and has the effect of protecting trump and his corruption.
The point isn't that anyone is above reproach, the point is that all you're doing is normalizing the increased awfulness of the republican corruption. And normalizing it means that it is more likely to continue happening and less likely to be punished.
If you're supposedly unhappy about clinton "corruption" why aren't you really mad about trump?
This whole "oh everything is the same nothing can improve" attitude is literally a favored tactic of the most corrupt governments. They want you to think that way because it means they'll never be held accountable. Any time people start talking about improving things they're met with an endless deluge of "oh it's all the same nothing can change" which is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[1] The best the fairly obvious house republican "investigation" into joe biden could manage was some vague statements about his son getting paid for having the last name biden, which may or may not be illegal, but certainly seems unethical, but more importantly, ISN'T THE SITTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Like, it is so incredibly obvious that words fail me that the president being corrupt matters A LOT MORE than his son being corrupt. Like, a lot a lot a lot more.
> [1] The best the fairly obvious house republican "investigation" into joe biden could manage was some vague statements about his son getting paid for having the last name biden, which may or may not be illegal, but certainly seems unethical, but more importantly, ISN'T THE SITTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Like, it is so incredibly obvious that words fail me that the president being corrupt matters A LOT MORE than his son being corrupt. Like, a lot a lot a lot more.
I don't disagree that they're all corrupt bastards but come on man you cannot seriously pretend the degree of corruption is the same.
the echochamber is going nuts… look at this thread and see how many of you are saying “degree of corruption” and then think whether or not you are getting this fed like clowns from whatever fucking (“social”) media your brain is being poisoned and then start to question your life’s choices
Are you arguing that every act of corruption is of precisely equal magnitude and consequence?
The only way for the "degree of corruption" to always be the same for every person ever is for every act of corruption to be of perfectly equal magnitude and consequence.
If an act of corruption can be of greater magnitude and consequence than another, than it's perfectly reasonable to say that someone who engages in corruption of greater magnitude and consequence does so "to a greater degree" than someone else.
So which is it?
I think deep down you really prefer to pretend that it's all perfectly equivalent, otherwise your simplified world-view doesn't make any sense